Investor Warren Buffett said at a meeting of shareholders of a big American company (Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) over the weekend, according to a report on Yahoo Finance that “the future of the newspaper industry is dismal:’For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price … They have the possibility of going to just unending losses’. As long as newspapers were essential to readers, they were essential to advertisers, he said. But news is now available in many other venues, he said. Berkshire has a substantial investment in Washington Post Co. Buffett said the company has a solid cable business, a good reason to hold on to it, but its newspaper business is in trouble”. This report can be read in full here.
On Monday, The Washington Post reported that the New York Times had just announced on Sunday evening that “it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England’s most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks”
The NYTimes bought the Boston Globe in 1993.
The filing is a required 60-days notice of intent, and is not necessarily the final decision, as the Washington Post pointed out.
However, the WPost article said, “The Globe’s circulation dropped 14 percent in the most recent six-month period. The Globe is expected to lose $85 million this year, the company says …
the recent nationwide plunge in advertising revenue … has triggered a wave of newspaper bankruptcies and the closing of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer …
A Globe shutdown would leave the city with only one daily newspaper, the tabloid Boston Herald, which has just 10 news reporters and is battling its own financial difficulties. ‘From the moment the Times Co. purchased The Globe in 1993, it has treated New England’s largest newspaper like a cheap whore’, former Globe columnist Eileen McNamara wrote last month in the Herald. ‘It pimped her out for profit during the booming 1990s and then pillaged her when times got tough. It closed her foreign bureaus and cheapened her coverage of everything from the fine arts to the hard sciences’.”
The Washington Post, which itself is in trouble (at least the newspaper part of its business) according to the Yahoo Finance report referred to above, also reported, however, that “The move could amount to a negotiating ploy to extract further concessions from the Globe’s unions, since the notice does not require the Times Co. to close the paper after 60 days. The deadline, however, would put the unions under fierce pressure to produce additional savings, and the Boston Newspaper Guild promptly called the step a ‘bullying’ tactic by the company’“.
The WPost also noted that “the Times Co. itself is under strong financial pressure. It recently mortgaged its new Manhattan headquarters, borrowed $250 million from a Mexican billionaire at 14 percent interest, laid off 100 newsroom staffers and cut salaries by 5 percent”. The WPost story on the difficulties being faced by the NYTimes and the Boston Globe can be read in full here .
Here in Jerusalem, the McClatchy newspaper group’s bureau chief Dion Nissenbaum recently wrote on his newspaper-blog, Checkpoint Jerusalem, that “Over the last few years, every major American news organization with an office on the fourth floor of Beit Agron has closed its doors – except one: McClatchy. Newsday’s correspondent: Long gone. The Boston Globe bureau: Closed. The Baltimore Sun office: Kaput. Most recently, the Tribune Company closed its Chicago Tribune bureau in Jerusalem and fired one of the two Los Angles Times reporters based in Jerusalem”.
Dion noted that “At one time, the fourth floor of the Beit Agron building in downtown Jerusalem was coveted journalistic real estate. There was a waiting list for those looking for space on the top floor of the five-story building … [which also houses the Israeli Government Press Office and a Jerusalem outpost of the IDF censor’s office] … The Boston Globe, Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, UPI and The Baltimore Sun all had offices here, alongside colleagues from Europe’s top papers. These days, the fourth floor of Beit Agron is becoming a hall of ghosts … Of course, McClatchy isn’t immune from the economic travails. Those of us working overseas find ourselves covering more geography without the same resources once at our disposal. In the US (a country where respect for reporters ethics generally ranks alongside bankers), there are few tears being shed as news organizations retreat from covering the world.
The demise of overseas reporting might not matter as much if American correspondents were being replaced by new outlets offering better coverage. But we’re not. Quality overseas reporting is simply going away … Some argue that Americans can rely on Israeli news outlets and Middle East-based blogs as an alternative. But Israeli and Palestinian media sources are simply no substitute … Israeli reporters are bound by strict censorship laws that prevent them from writing about the country’s most important military issues, such as the Israeli bombing of the Syrian military site in 2007. And Israeli reporters are barred by their government from entering Gaza, making their coverage of one of the most complex issues currently facing their country inevitably unbalanced, short of critical perspective and largely devoid of reliable, on-the-ground reporting. (Beyond Gaza, Israeli reporters can’t cover neighboring countries still at war with Israel…) The Palestinian media is nowhere close to serving as a supplement for outside coverage. Palestinian reporters face threats from both the pro-Western PA government based in Ramallah and the Hamas-led government running Gaza. The dwindling number of American reporters covering the Middle East means a dwindling number of voices able to bring different perspectives and analysis to a complex conflict”. Dion’s post can be read in full here .
At the same time, Freedom House’s 2009 annual assessment of global press freedom [covering 2008] shows that it is declining in every region — and that for the first time Israel, Italy and Hong Kong have lost their status as “Free”, and slipped down to the “Partly Free” category. This year’s annual report was released on 1 May, in advance of World Press Freedom Day marked on 3 May. And, the conclusions show that this is “”the seventh straight year of overall deterioration”.
An overview essay states that “Threats to media freedom are apparent even in established democracies and very open media environments. In 2008, two countries (Israel and Italy) and one territory (Hong Kong) that had been ranked in the Free category slipped into the Partly Free range as a result of threats to media independence and diversity. All three had already been placed in the lower ranks of the Free category, but their move into Partly Free illustrates that even democracies sometimes resort to placing restrictions on media freedom … [In the Middle East and North Africa region] in terms of numerical movements, scores for most countries in the region were stagnant in 2008. However, Israel, the only country in the group to be consistently rated Free, moved into the Partly Free range due to the heightened conflict in Gaza, which triggered increased travel restrictions on both Israeli and foreign reporters; official attempts to influence media coverage of the conflict within Israel; and greater self-censorship and biased reporting, particularly during the outbreak of open war in late December. Negative movement was also seen in the Israeli-Occupied Territories/Palestinian Authority (which includes both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), which saw a two-point decline due to worsening intimidation by both major political factions that restricts critical and independent coverage and the diversity of viewpoints available. Journalists faced pressure and threats from all sides, including from Israeli forces present in some parts of the territories. This overview essay can be read in full here .
In a press release, Freedom House reported that “Journalists faced an increasingly grim working environment in 2008 … ‘The journalism profession today is up against the ropes and fighting to stay alive, as pressures from governments, other powerful actors and the global economic crisis take an enormous toll’, said Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House executive director. ‘The press is democracy’s first defense and its vulnerability has enormous implications for democracy if journalists are not able to carry out their traditional watchdog role’.”
The press release stated that “Key regional findings include … [for the Middle East and North Africa]: The region continues to have the world’s lowest level of press freedom. Restrictions on journalists and official attempts to influence coverage during the Gaza conflict led to Israel’s Partly Free status. The Israeli-Occupied Territories/Palestinian Authority saw declines with both Hamas and Fatah intimidating journalists. Iraq saw the security environment for journalists improve and new legal protections for media in the Kurdish areas”.
And, the press release said, “Key trends that led to numerical movements in the study include:
* Fragile Freedoms: Declines in Israel, Italy and Taiwan illustrate that established democracies with traditionally open media are not immune to restricting media freedom. Over the last five years, a number of emerging democracies have also suffered considerable declines in press freedom including: Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Thailand, the Philippines and Senegal.
* Consolidating Control: Authoritarian states are increasingly consolidating control of the media. In the last five years, space for independent media shrunk significantly in countries like Russia, Ethiopia and The Gambia.
* Violence and Impunity: The level of violence and physical harassment directed at the press by both government and non-state actors continues to rise in many countries. Many of these cases go unsolved and these attacks have a chilling effect on media, contributing to self-censorship.
* Punitive laws: Both governments and private individuals continue to restrict media freedom through laws that forbid “inciting hatred,” commenting on sensitive topics such as religion or ethnicity, or “endangering national security.” Libel and defamation laws remain a widespread way to punish the press.
* New media: Freedom House’s recently released internet freedom index finds that new media outlets are often freer than traditional media and have the potential to open repressive media environments such as China and Iran. However, as new media gains influence, governments are beginning to crack down on internet users by employing traditional means of repression.” The press release can be read in full here.